Timbers, 



32S 



[April, 1912. 



Seed Selection.— Seed should be saved 

 from the best fruits only. By this is 

 meant not so much a large fruit as one 

 that is sweet and well flavoured, with a 

 small seed cavity and few seeds ; oblong 

 fruits should be preferred to roundish 

 ones in saving seed, as they grow in 

 plants having both stamens and pistils 

 in the same flower ; and these being, 

 very largely, self-pollinated, the seeds 

 produced from such flowers are more 

 likely to reproduce their kind than the 

 seed from roundish, melon-shaped fruits, 

 which mostly grow on female plants. 



All male plants should be destroyed 

 wherever they appear, as not only are 

 they unproductive but their pollen 

 being carried to the fruiting plants they 

 tend to produce degenerate plants when 



these are grown from the seed produced 

 on plants growing in the vicinity of the 

 male plants. 



There is no need to fear that the other 

 plants will nofc fruit if the male papayas 

 are destroyed, for the reason that there 

 are always plants about having perfect 

 flowers, and which provide sufficient 

 pollen for the fructification of the female 

 plants. This applies particularly to the 

 Hawaiian papaya. 



General Remarks. — The papaya is 

 very impatient of water standing around 

 the roots, and should be planted only on 

 well-drained land ; being easily injured 

 by strong winds, it should be planted in 

 sheltered situations. 



Keep the land clean of weeds and the 

 plants well mulched. 



TIMBERS. 



METHOD OF RE- AFFORESTING 

 THE PLAIN AREAS OF BLACK 

 COTTON SOIL IN THE BELLARY 

 DISTRICT. 



(From the Indian Forester, 

 Vol. XXXVII., No. 12, December, 1911.) 



There are two ways of working black 

 soil. One is sowing on moulds and the 

 other sowing in furrows made by iron 

 ploughs and levelled with a heavy 

 guntika. , 



1. Preparation of Mounds. — In my 

 range I tried sowings on mounds 12" x 4' 

 x li' each in rows 9' apart. The seeds 

 sown were chiefly Babul, Nim {Melia 

 indica), Albizzia Lebbek, and Tamarind. 



Melia indica, Babul and Tamarind 

 germinated well over 95 per cent, of the 

 mounds, and have grown from 9" to 

 1J' before the winter. During the winter 

 and summer the mounds were found 

 to crack. Steps were taken to fill up 

 the cracks with earth dug from the 

 trenches around the mounds. Several 

 of the seedlings were found dead before 

 the ensuing rainy season. Those that 

 escaped the drought of the first summer 

 are growing well, and the greatest height 



attained by seedlings in one year was 

 Nim U', Babul 3', Tamarind 1'. The re- 

 sults of this operation show 50 per cent, 

 of the mounds successful. The cost of 

 carrying out mound sowing was Rs. 7-2-0 

 per acre as per details shown below : — 



Rs. a. p. 



Preparing 180 mounds per acre, 

 at 6 pies per mound... ... 5 10 



Sowing seeds, per acre ... 8 



Filling in the cracks, per acre ... 1 



Total... 7 2 



2. The Second Method.— Last year I 

 tried the second method of sowing seeds. 

 I had iron ploughing over 154 acres in 

 four different reserves. The method 

 employed is shown below. In order to 

 eradicate mirth grass I engagud iron 

 ploughs drawn by five pairs of good oxen 

 or six pairs if the animals were weak, 

 and had the land well ploughed and 

 then exposed for one month. 



I then got the ploughed area levelled 

 with heavy guntikas and had the mirth 

 grass collected and burnt. In the rains 

 of June and July 129 acres of land so 

 treated were sown with seed drills in 

 furrows 6' apart. Tamarind, Melia 



